Bangor Daily News , June 22

With another plan for restoring Atlantic salmon in Maine and another call for a lot of money to do it, policy-makers are at a critical juncture. A draft salmon recovery plan, released by the federal government last week, calls for a variety of steps to be taken to boost the numbers of wild Atlantic salmon in eight Maine rivers. None of the steps, however, are new and the National Marine Fisheries Service estimates they would cost at least $33 million in the next three years.

At the same time, a different branch of the federal government but one that also has jurisdiction over wild Atlantic salmon, the Department of the Interior, has praised a major project on the Penobscot River as the best hope for restoring Atlantic salmon. That project, however, deals with a different population of the fish, one that has not been declared endangered by the federal government.

Almost four years after the fish were declared an endangered species, Maine now has an official blueprint for restoring populations of wild Atlantic salmon in the eight rivers, five of which are in Washington County. According to the Draft Atlantic Salmon Recovery Plan, released Friday by NMFS, strategies to build Atlantic salmon populations include reducing acid rain, restoring habitat, minimizing the mixture of wild and farmed fish, limiting water withdrawals from the eight rivers and reducing predation.

None of these suggestions is new. Most were included in the state’s conservation plan, drafted more than seven years ago, to stave off an ESA listing. Still, after removing dams, spending millions of dollars to acquire riverside land to protect salmon habitat, drafting strict rules for the withdrawal of water from salmon rivers and their tributaries and toughening the rules for fish farms, salmon still aren’t returning to Maine’s waters. This year’s returns are expected to remain “dismal,” according to George LaPointe, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources. …

Without defined goals and costs, especially given the history of recovery efforts so far, an alternative may be needed. The Penobscot River Restoration Project, which is currently seeking $50 million, may be that alternative. The project, championed by Interior Secretary Gale Norton, entails the removal of two dams and modification of five others on the river to reopen 500 miles of habitat for salmon and other fish. It is supported by environmental groups, the Penobscot Nation, the energy company that owns the dams and salmon enthusiasts.

The Penobscot River, which has salmon runs in the hundreds, not the single digits like the ESA rivers, represents the best hope for salmon restoration in New England. The caveat is that the fish that return there may not meet the federal government’s definition of wild salmon because of its genetic makeup. Over more than a century, millions of salmon have been stocked in the Penobscot. The eight listed rivers have seen less stocking and are thought to have more genetically pure populations.

Millions more dollars will be spent trying to bring Atlantic salmon back to Maine. The money should be spent on the projects with the best chance for success.

My Life’ matches its author
Philadelphia Inquirer, June 22

Former President Bill Clinton launched a book tour over the weekend to promote his memoir, “My Life.” Hearing him talk for nearly all of CBS’s “60 Minutes” was nostalgic. It generated the same feelings that his eight-year tenure did – a complex reaction best summed up in a set of adjectives: charming, maddening, inspiring, infuriating, brilliant, devious.

Supreme Court cops out
The Courier, Findlay, Ohio, June 16

The Supreme Court copped out. Rather than taking the opportunity to rule, once and for all, on the constitutionality of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, the court on Monday took a pass. It instead ruled 5-3 that the plaintiff, atheist Michael Newdow, could not legally represent his daughter because he lacks full custody.

The court’s decision leaves the schools free to continue to recite the pledge, including the disputed phrase “under God.” But for how long? It’s a near certainty that sooner or later, Newdow or somebody else will try again.

The court lost an opportunity to affirm the right of all Americans to acknowledge God in public if they so choose.

Another intelligence foul-up
Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, June 17

The U.S. State Department put out a report a couple of months ago … that the number of terrorist incidents has dropped steadily from 2001 through 2003, reaching a 34-year low.

Recently, however, Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted that the report was wrong.

The State Department left entire countries out of its count; it gave special weight to terrorist acts that resulted in no deaths, injuries or major property damage, and it discontinued its 2003 count two months before the end of year.

Normally, in situations like this, somebody calls for an investigation into how the foul-up happened.

However, given the quality of the Bush administration’s other information-gathering and analytical exercises lately, maybe there’s no point.